David Shusterfilled in for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown last night. Here are a few of the questions this “journalist” asked about the 9/12 rally of his guest, Clarence Page, in the opening segment alone:

It seemed hard to tell whether this was a rally about recovering the America of 9/12/2001 or America before the repeal of Jim Crow. What are these people really protesting?

These are some of the same folks who during the Bush administration told everyone on the Left that they could love it or leave it. Well, they don’t seem to be packing up to go now. (I guess that counts as a question at MSNBC. – Ed.)

Given how divorced from reality so many of the 9/12, teabag protesters are, should anyone take them seriously?

David Shuster first reported the hoax that Sarah Palin did not know Africa was a continent on the assumption someone must have checked it out (even though he hadn’t). This viral episode of journalistic malpractice is recorded on neither Shuster’s nor Palin‘s Wikipedia page, although it caused lasting damage to Palin’s image (and all-too-transient damage to Shuster’s). It has slipped down the memory hole, as so many things do at MSNBC.